just a quick update…yesterday during some heavy lifting i cramped up, which for me is very odd as i never cramp while lifting, i figured i drink quite a bit a water normally so i didn't change my water drinking habits, well i did the math and it likes like i only get about 90 oz. or so of water a day, and the recommended level is from 128-256. luckily the cramp wasn't too severe, and i got it iced and took a ton of potassium so i should be all right there. i'm still tired as hell and sore after workouts, perhaps this is related to not hydrating enough, but i feel fast as hell right now and like i've got a tremendous amount of pop. hopefully i can stay healthy enough for my meet on sat.
People have a misconception that it dehydrates them when in fact it doesn't do that at all. It actually increases total water volume in the body. All it does is increase hydration demands which means you'll have to drink more water than you would if you weren't supplementing.
aight here's the update, i went 45'2" which was nice and all, but i really felt like i could've went a lot farther that day. i'm just not holding my phases at all, and when i say not at all i mean none absolutely nada zip. but i must say i felt pretty good on most of my jumps but i still think i felt faster earlier in the year when i got my 46'. so did the creatine help? i don't really know, but i guess i'll keep taking it for a while.
new update - sucked it up this week, only went 44'1". and listen to this, I went 44'0" off of a 6 step run up on monday. honestly right now, i need to worry alot more about the technical aspect than the power, because off of a 6 step, i feel powerful and confident, but when i'm running down the runway, i feel slow and crappy. i don't know if it's mental or what, but it sure is starting to anger me as I know i'm capable of so much more.
Could I take it without weightlifting (obviously splitting the dosage throughout the day) and NOT gain weight? I heard it acts as like a H+ buffer and could help long sprinters, so I was curious…
I have found that if i break my creatine into doses I don't gain weight. I cycle 8 weeks on, 4 weeks off and looking back through my training log, my weight is always steady around 78-79kg. It might be different for you though, I have heard it can vary quite a bit based on the athlete.
I have never gained weight when I took creatine and I know there are others out there like me. I think this is largely like the creatine-responder / non-responder issue…..that is, some will but some won't. For those that do however, I don't think whether you weight lift or not will have any real bearing on whether you gain weight. This is because the mechanism of weight gain with creatine supplementation is primarily intracellular water gain as a result of changes in the osmotic gradients in the cell due to creatine supplementation. As a result, if the creatine is entering the cell (and it's not some specially formulated creatine designed to minimized weight gain of which I don't know the details about), you probably should see some water weight gain if you've gained weight in the past when using creatine.
OK, so I've obviously not used creatine in the past, but if I AM a responder to it, hypothetically speaking, then I could expect to see some gains in (water) weight (Basically - bad idea to take it then)?
Originally posted by 400Stud
OK, so I've obviously not used creatine in the past, but if I AM a responder to it, hypothetically speaking, then I could expect to see some gains in (water) weight (Basically - bad idea to take it then)?
Not necessarily. I seem to respond but don't gain water weight. Other responders gain weight. I'm not sure what the mechanism for the difference is. Also, weight gain doesn't have to be terrible as long as you manipulate it so that you are at your ideal body weight when you need to be and not worry too much about it at less important parts of a training cycle. To do this, you could take creatine during the early parts of the season and cycle off of it during the more important parts of the season. In this way you could reap the benefits of creatine in your training and recovery from training but still have time to lose weight by getting off creatine just prior to your focal meets.
Why wouldn't it be better to have the focal meet within the 30days of taking creatine? Wouldnt you perform better if you run while taking creatine? (say like three wks after first taking creatine)
Why do you, mike, suggest that we are off the creatine for the focal meet?
Creatine is a supplement mainly used to benefit training not competition. This is because it has been show to improve MULTIPLE bouts of high intensity exercise. I think it would be fair to say that in some instances the water weight gained from taking creatine would cause an increase in competition time which would overshadow the benefit elicited by being on creatine.
Originally posted by 400Stud
OK, so I've obviously not used creatine in the past, but if I AM a responder to it, hypothetically speaking, then I could expect to see some gains in (water) weight (Basically - bad idea to take it then)?
Not necessarily. I seem to respond but don't gain water weight. Other responders gain weight. I'm not sure what the mechanism for the difference is. Also, weight gain doesn't have to be terrible as long as you manipulate it so that you are at your ideal body weight when you need to be and not worry too much about it at less important parts of a training cycle. To do this, you could take creatine during the early parts of the season and cycle off of it during the more important parts of the season. In this way you could reap the benefits of creatine in your training and recovery from training but still have time to lose weight by getting off creatine just prior to your focal meets.
hey sgreen2, u seem to think creatine is lieka maricle recovery, lighting fast, explosive, powerful suplement. alot of it is mental. but it does help. i find i can finish my workouts alot better and my muscle fill up larger. it has helped me alot. but i need to cycle it.. ive been on to long.. :no: shame on me
